Colour in House

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Colour in House

Don visited Cairns to look at a stunning house and garden featuring a mixture of styles and themes. The owners, Rance and Julie Stafford, drew much of their inspiration from the work of Versace. Rance began collecting Mexican homewares, which led to an interest in Santa Fe style, and contemporary wrought iron balustrading by a local metalworking business, Elefantus, adds a French/Italian feel to the building. Rance has been able to add substance to the fairly standard three bedroom house by the clever use of details such as thick columns at the entrance, a solid front door and a strongly defined staircase.

Paint colour

Julie and Rance love vibrant colours. They were looking at the pictures in a book on Mexico, and were very taken with paint colours in the Ralph Lauren range. They sent to the United States for a colour deck, and Dulux mixed most of the colours in their Tuscan paints. Four colours - pink, red, light and dark silver - could not be mixed in Australia, so they were purchased from America. Julie thinks that these colours work really well together, and she is thrilled with the finished result.

Foliage colour

Rance "has always had a fascination with colour in the landscape", and he thinks that in Queensland it is important to work with a bold palette. This is a subject Rance is very knowledgeable about, as he runs a landscape contracting business and a large wholesale nursery specialising in tropical and exotic foliage plants. He and Julie also called upon landscape architect, Andrew Prowse, to help them with the design of their garden.

They chose tropical foliage plants such as bromeliads, cryptanthus, yuccas and cycads to create a Santa Fe style garden which would complement the subtle exterior colours on the house. Mass planted sealing wax palms (Cyrtostachys renda) give privacy and form a spectacular backdrop to the garden. This clumping tropical species has rich green leaves with scarlet leaf bases.

Don was also impressed with the little earth star (Cryptanthus bivittatus), a type of bromeliad which seems to colour up and look particularly beautiful in the tropics.

Further information

Andrew Prowse
Pawsey & Prowse
Landscape Architects
PO Box 1419, Cairns, QLD, 4870
Phone: (07) 4031 3310

Plants from Russell River Plantation
Phone: (07) 4032 0866 Fax: (07) 4032 0877

Elefantus
Showroom and workshop
444 Sheridan Street
North Cairns, QLD, 4870
Phone: (07) 40 320 901
Mobile: 0413 878 440
Fax: (07) 40 320 901
Email: fraser@elefantus.com.au
Website: http://www.elefantus.com.au/

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